Steve Bernat, co-founder and Group CEO of One Group Solutions, discusses the firm's rapid growth, its new strategic partnership, and its data-driven approach to scaling the business.

‍Can you take us through the key numbers of ONE today?

We started in 2019, and seven years later our team has grown to nearly 200 people. Today, we support more than 200 asset managers across the globe, servicing over 700 funds and entities spanning both liquid and illiquid asset classes. Our revenue has been growing by 30% to 40% every year, and we are confident that this trajectory will continue. However, the metric I am most proud of sits outside the financials: our annual staff turnover remains between 2% and 3% – an exceptional figure for our industry. It reflects the strength of our culture and, I believe, explains why our clients are so satisfied with the level of service we provide. We recently commissioned an independent market survey and achieved a Net Promoter Score of 38, an excellent result. Maintaining that level of service while continuing to scale remains our top priority.

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‍You welcomed a minority strategic partner over the past weeks. How is this affecting your governance?

For our clients and our people, nothing changes. We remain independent and retain full control of the business. Our new investors fully support both our strategy and our operating model. Beyond capital, they bring valuable expertise, technology capabilities and experience that will help accelerate our growth. But that's only part of the story. We will deploy this capital across three priorities: attracting additional senior talent, accelerating our technology roadmap and expanding into new markets where our existing clients want us to support them. It is also important to clarify the structure of this transaction. This is not a traditional private equity fund investment. It is an SPV structure bringing together two strategic investors whose long-term vision is fully aligned with our DNA. As a result, we are not constrained by the typical investment horizon of a fund. This is a genuinely long-term partnership, which perfectly matches the business we are building.

‍What does a data-centric strategy look like in your business?

Technology has been at the heart of our business from day one. Starting with a clean slate, free from legacy systems, gave us a real structural advantage. We built what we believe is market-leading technology for our industry and, most importantly, we built it for ourselves first. That internal discipline has shaped every decision we've made. Since then, we have evolved the platform into a fully SaaS-enabled solution and continue to invest several million euros every year in its development. With our new strategic partner alongside us, we expect to accelerate AI-driven enhancements that will further improve the service we deliver to our clients.

Luxembourg has long been a centre of excellence for back-office and middle-office activities, with decades of daily fund valuation at the heart of the industry. It is therefore entirely legitimate to ask whether artificial intelligence will replace people. Our answer is clear: technology enables our people to do an even better job. It frees them from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value work and more meaningful client interactions. People remain at the heart of our business, and technology is the multiplier.

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‍This article was originally published in Andy Luxembourg ("Steve Bernat (ONE Group Solutions) : Une croissance construite sur la technologie") and Decision Makers Luxembourg ("Steve Bernat (ONE Group Solutions): Building a data-driven firm from scratch").